Thought I'd Share A Story...

Last December, the weekend before Christmas, our home was broken into while we were away visiting family for the weekend. The guy pried open our locked storm door and kicked in the front door. We came home late Sunday night and noticed the front door wide open and immediately called the police. Luckily, it must have been someone looking for just quick grabs of presents under the tree and since we took all of ours with us it, it was bare. Nothing was disturbed or searched, but we noticed my wife's Coach purse was missing from the dining room table and my beloved S&W Model 66 2.5" no-dash was missing from the bedside table. We filed the report but the police weren't interested in doing much for us. The 66 was bought from my father in law who had owned the gun his whole life. It was the gun that my wife first learned to shoot with. Everybody, especially me was sick about losing it.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. My FIL and I split a table a local gun show, him buying/selling guns and me selling grips. Before the show opened, he made a walkabout to check the other tables for deals. He comes back to our table with a box and shows me a new gun he bought. No surprise because he always finds the deals. Low and behold he found a Model 66 2.5" and bought it knowing that I would buy it from him to replace mine stolen one. I dropped the cylinder to check the dash number and would you believe it was a no-dash model! I couldn't believe his luck. It looked almost identical to mine except I had S&W magna grips and this one had black Hogue grips. So the more I thought about it, the more curious I go. What are the odds of another no-dash 66 being in my city? So I decided to take the Hogue grips off and just check the serial number on the butt. I keep a list always handy of my S/Ns on my phone so I had it real quick. Low and behold, the gun in my hand was the gun that was stolen from me last December!

Okay, so as soon as I realized the gun that my FIL just bought was the one that was stolen from me, I immediately took the gun to the LEO table at the doors of the show and reported what had happened to them. They took my information and pulled up the initial report. They were able to confirm that the gun they had matched the S/N of the one on the report from December that was listed as stolen. They then took the gun and approached the man who sold it to my FIL. The seller was a private individual, not a dealer. He told the police that he runs a "WTB" on Craigslist for "guns and gold" and that he was approached by an individual who sold him my gun along with some jewelry.

The police said that they will be looking into the seller for receiving stolen property, but that their isn't much they can do without proof that he knew the gun was stolen. The seller didn't bother to get a bill of sale when he bought my gun either, so there is no way to track back to the person before him. I actually took the seller's name and contacted the ATF because the seller came off as a sleezeball creep kind of guy. The way I figure, he's probably got a little unspoken arrangement where he buys stolen guns and gives the thief about half what the gun's worth and doesn't ask questions and then turns around and sells them for what they're worth and makes money on them that way. His table at the show was a hodge podge of different guns and what I'd call "gun show junk".

So the police said they had to return the gun to it's "original" owner, which was me and that unless the seller was prosecuted, they couldn't force him to refund my FIL's money he paid for the gun. So my FIL was out the money he spent on the gun since it was given back to me. Luckily, I had another gun that he always like I ended up just giving him that gun for free since I got my 66 back. The gun I gave to him didn't mean as much to me as the 66 did, so in the end we both got something that we were happy with.

I'd like to hear how this develops.
I had a firearm (pistol) stolen once. Low and Behold, the police returned it after the burglars were tried and convicted.
About 7-8 months I think it was.
Glad you got it back. Hope the turd goes to jail.

Thanks fellas. The police didn't run the numbers of any other the other guns that I noticed. They just seemed glad that I got my gun back and weren't to concerned about checking the seller out. That's why I thought the ATF should know about it. Maybe they will do some digging on this guy.

Wow, congratulations on getting your gun back. Unfortunately they don't have any evidence on this seller, but it's a VERY odd scenario. I mean come on.....anyone who buys/sells guns for a living is incredibly stupid to NOT keep a running log of who they buy/sell from.....unless they're trying to hide something.

If the guy has a craiglist ad the seller had to contact him either by email or by phone. Most PD's will be able to solve this in a few days. I'm not liking the expression that stolen firearms are being sold at gun shows, I assume it happens but when discovered I expect the police to take decisive action. In this account it seems the PD didn't bother to check you the guy that just sold a stolen firearm? That just doesn't sound right to me.

Even Barney Fife would have ran every firearm on this guys table to check to see if he had more reported stolen firearms in his position and would have pressed him hard to account how he came in to possesion of this firearm. Also that pistol would be evidence and it would be some time before it was returned to the rightful owner.